Blogging

I’m taking a social media pause

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Don’t go looking for my latest snappy Tweet, funny Instagram photo, or Facebook banter in the next two weeks. I’ll be offline.

I might read a book. Bake a bread. Swim. Sleep early. Eat ugly food. Rest my right-hand thumb.

Inspired by Jemila of Circumspecte, and instructed by WikiHow, I will sign off from blog, social media apps, and all for two weeks or so. I am doing it as I want to experience my vacation with my children fully. I am doing it because I feel the chill of addiction.  I am doing it because I am tired to the core. I have read that Social Media breaks make you happier, well, we shall see about that. I have a feeling I will rather than meeting a sweet sunset happiness, have serious withdrawal syndromes, like missing taking square photos of everything I eat and phantom grab for my phone for late night scrolling…

I will report back here mid-August. What happened? Did I really stay off? Did I miss it? What did I learn? Now, are you willing to join me?

Pic: Created with Paper by FiftyThree.

 

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Blogging, BloggingGhana, General Advice, Ghana, Teaching

My talk at #iHav2017: Social Media and its Employment Opportunities

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On Wed 26 July 2017, I was invited by the iHav Foundation to be a resource person at their training for youth leaders from the entire African continent.

I was invited to talk on the topic of:

SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

and ended up interacting with a smaller group of social media enthusiasts at the conference from five different countries: Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Ghana.

We discussed how to control your social media presence and how to start a blog. This is the talk I had prepared:

————————————————————————————-

Have you ever asked your parents how they kept in touch with family and friends outside Ghana when they were your age? Let me tell you that you needed to take transport to the post office at Makola market around high street and order a call – for the next day!

10 years later, cell phone tech came to Ghana and a SIM card cost, guess how much? A monthly salary!

A monthly salary!

10 years later, Ghana had dial up Internet. Do you remember the sound of it? I think you are too young! Because today, 3/4 Ghanaians have mobile data subscription on their phone (NCA, 2017).

=revolution. Everything the World has access to online, we have access to as well. All opportunities. No excuses!

Three opportunities:

  1. Controlling your (and your country’s) social media presence

Google yourself. What happens?

For me, it’s

Wikipedia, YouTube, work website, my blog, Wikipedia, twitter, linked in – you can’t write about yourself in wiki (but everything else! join the Wikipedia community!) By the way, the coordinator for wiki libraries in the world(!) lives in Ghana and started up as a contributing writer for Wikipedia.

Most of these entries I have written/created myself! Then I have control over my online and social media presence.

Next level of controlling online presence is contributing to how your country and Africa is covered online. This is why I started BloggingGhana,   to share the stories from Ghana and encourage Ghanaians to share our world. Another example is the Ghanaian hair app, Tress.It creates a community around something very important in our context, great hair!

2. Learning something online (Or teaching others):

how dance salsa, how do braid hair, How to Cook nigerian jollof to impress a Nigerian, how to . How to set up a blog. Just google it, watch some videos and you are ready to go. Skills can lead to new opportunities to make a living.

3. Doing work online

Is the last level. Although much work these days is actually done online: PR, communications, marketing, writing, journalism, music, art, e-commerce, we also have people who work remotely.

Many of us also use social media to build ourselves up, collect the work we do in one place (like a blog) but also use social media to discuss societal issues in Tweet-ups and Facebook-live sessions, help others, perhaps more as a calling as a business opportunity (one does not exclude the other though!)

Every time you go online, vow to produce as much as you consume!

  • Set up profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Google, linked in, upload pictures, say something. Make sure pictures of you online represent the best you, if they do not, change them and the old one(s) will eventually be pushed down in search.
  • Follow me on social media channels @kajsaha (I was even wearing my @ellishaboie KAJSAHA top, see above!) as I tweet and instagram African content relevant for you. See for instance my blog post: “Why blogging is good for your career”.
  • Follow @bloggingghana, and/or social media organizations in your country (see my Twitter list!)

I said it again: Every time you go online, vow to produce as much as you consume!

We did not have so much time for Q&A, but one I remember was:

Q: How do I get more followers?

A (From both me and others in the group): Be useful, kind, promote others, share information, summarize events, ask questions, post photos.

 

Thanks again to Christabel Ofori and the team at iHAV Foundation for inviting me and creating such a useful platform for our future leaders.

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Ghana, My Week, People, Social Media

Where is Africa on Open Data? Some answers from #AODC17

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African Open Data Conference 2017, or #AODC17 for short, was a five-day affair in Accra last week (or up to a week if you included some pre and post arrangements). I was there for two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, mostly because that is what my schedule allowed, but also because those days had the least of high-level dialogue – which is often not very productive – and I was more interested in African Open Data on the ground.

My observations:

1. The field of open data is exploding, the conference was a major to-do with buy in from Ghana’s president and many international organizations as well as several hundred delegates.

2. The networking was out of this world, among the most interesting people I met were academics Umaru Bah,  Jeanne Holm, activists from BudgITng and Connected Development, blogger Chioma Agwuegbo, tweeps  …students…old friends like Nnenna Nwakanma of World Wide Web Foundation, Nehemiah Attigah of Odekro (links for organizations or linked in profiles), Dorothy Gordon…

3. The individuals involved in Open Data are in much renaissance people, it is programmers-entrepreneurs-governance experts, professors-public servants, accountants-activists, story tellers-national security etc. I felt at home and got inspired to stop forcing expertise and continue on my “wide” career.

4. The base level of what constitute best practices in the open data space is not yet set, exemplified by that Government of Ghana can sponsor such a conference and yet not have passed the rather basic Right to Information bill (I learned at #AODC17 similar have been passed already by Nigeria: Freedom of Information, and Sierra Leone for instance). GovLab‘s “periodic table” (interactive link or see below) of Open Data captures what is needed beautifully. I just have one question: Now how do we go from talk shop to action?

 

5. The events held about town were a good attempt at integrating the conference objectives with its surroundings, so to speak opening the data of the conference, something often overlooked in conferences.

In all, these were intense days for me, days I feel have impacted my life in a number of important ways both with inspiration, and network. See tweets and next steps/links below.

Tweets from #AODC17

 


 

Next steps

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Sweden

Daydreaming Heaven with Elsa on the island of Gotland

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Ohhh! I just discovered one of Sweden’s most prolific lifestyle bloggers, Elsa Billgren, has bought a summer cottage on Gotland, the island I am from in Sweden.

This means I can get real-time, high-quality photos of my alternative life (should I have been a successful blogger/decorator/celeb). Elsa recounts her second-hand shopping, cottage decorating, fantastic family life, divine dinners with friends, charming garden ideas, professional DIY-projects with beautiful photos to go with. It is the absolute heaven for daydreaming!

An example is this post which highlights a perfect day in the adorable town of Visby. I mean, this is for instance exactly what I would have eaten…

(butter fried fish at Bakfickan with lingonberry jam and mash)

 

These are the very cobble stones on which I would have walked, dressed in loose jeans or something striped…

(old town Visby, S:t Hansgatan)

 

…and this is absolutely where I would have gone to do my shopping, ok, window shopping.

(Akantus).

I am so happy and grateful. Thank you, Elsa, for bringing all the colors and details of my daydream to me in a convenient blogging format!

Photo credit: Elsa Billgren.

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Ghana, Political, Promoting, Social Media

7 Facebook Profiles to Follow on Sociopolitical Issues in Ghana

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Sometimes I despair: the problems are too many, the poverty too jarring, the madness to intense, the attitude among the leaders appalling, truly everywhere I turn, I see costly mistakes.

Then I turn to these seven Ghanaian opinion leaders asking the right questions. Because we need to ask questions, we need to keep the pressure up, we need to not despair.

Here are my top seven Facebook profiles to follow on sociopolitical issues in Ghana.

  1. Golda Addo 
  2. Bright Simons 
  3. Ethel D. Cofie (see her this week on #EthelCofieStartupSchool!)
  4. Franklin Cudjoe 
  5. Jemila Wumpini Abdulai (Meet her at #Cirqmixer, July 22)
  6. Kwame Gyan 
  7. Kathleen Addy

Chin up, follow them today!

Illustration borrowed from here.

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Ghana

Today I am all about Black Girls Glow…

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..the album is finally out! If you want to listen to contemporary Ghana, tune into this beautiful collaboration between Ghanaian artists Poetra Asantewa and Dzyadzorm featuring fellow creatives Adomaa, Ria Boss, Cina Soul and Fu under the name Black Girls Glow.

From the first time I heard of this creative collaboration and its lineup, I have been excited. These artists are fab on their own, but often when women collaborate, the sky is the limit! However, the world we live in; patriarchal and commercial structures, make it more common that women compete.  “BGG is a concept that aims to raise the profile of female artists locally, regionally and globally by highlighting and showcasing the brilliant and talented young female artists making waves in the Ghanaian entertainment industry. Black Girls Glow is based on the notion that musical collaboration is a uniquely powerful way to connect people across political and cultural barriers.”, says one of the two initiators, Poetra Asantewa. It is powerful! These Ghanaian creatives are connecting, and it is an immediate creative win.

It is a playful album and even has a track called “Child’s Play” that is like a medley of songs and rhymes we sing to children and concludes with childhood ending? My favorite song is the passionate defense for the selfie: “it is the house you go braless in”, “selfie taking is reclaiming the value of self-love”… The album is a bit cryptically called Mother of Heirs, perhaps the Black Girls Glow collective is envisioning the woman that ought to be respected? The mightly mother of our future children? The track “Mother of Heirs” charges “step aside for the mother of heirs” over suggestive beats, and in sarcastic verses, “silly girl”, “little girl” and “pretty girl” are contrasted with this mother. But could we not also respect the silly, pretty girl for her playfulness, her humanity? Can we women not self-love before we realize we might (also) be the mother of heirs?

The sound is rich, the content critical (and often funny), and I want to sing along, I want to dance! Today I am all about Black Girls Glow!

You can listen to the full album here:  https://soundcloud.com/blackgirlsglow
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